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BlackBerry reported a $4.4 billion loss and a 56 percent drop in revenue for its fiscal third quarter yesterday and said it would step back from its once-core handset business through a partnership with the Asian contract-manufacturer Foxconn.

The dismal financial news followed the failure of BlackBerry to find a buyer for the company last month and the replacement of Thorsten Heins, the chief executive, with John S. Chen, the former chairman of Sybase. Chen has since fired several high-level executives at the company.

The substantial loss, which follows one of nearly $1 billion in the second quarter, again reflected the failure of the BlackBerry 10 line of phones, which were portrayed as a lifesaver for the company when introduced this year. The third-quarter loss included a $2.7 billion write-down mainly related to BlackBerry 10 phones. Of the

4.3 million BlackBerrys purchased by consumers and businesses during the quarter,

3.2 million were models that use the obsolete BlackBerry 7 operating system.

The company’s $1.2 billion in revenue compared with $2.7 billion in the same period a year ago and represented a 24 percent drop from the previous quarter.

BlackBerry, like other many other hardware companies including Apple, has long relied on Foxconn to manufacture phones. But the new partnership appears to take the relationship to a new level.

The arrangement seems to be a way for BlackBerry to effectively hand over some of its handset business without running afoul of Canadian foreign-investment laws. The government of Canada has made it clear that, for national security reasons, it would not allow the sale of BlackBerry or any significant portion of the company to any Chinese firm or a company with extensive Chinese operations, as is the case with Foxconn, whose headquarters are in Taiwan.

BlackBerry said it jointly would develop and manufacture some phones with Foxconn in the future, including a new model aimed at the Indonesian market, and that Foxconn “will manage the inventory of those devices.” BlackBerry said it will control all of the “intellectual property” in phones created through the partnership.

Walgreen

Walgreen’s fiscal first-quarter earnings soared 68 percent as investments in other companies paid off for the nation’s largest drugstore chain, but a slowdown in generic-drug introductions helped squeeze profitability.

The Deerfield, Ill., company said yesterday that it booked a total of $376 million in income during the quarter that ended on Nov. 30 from its stakes in European health and beauty retailer Alliance Boots and U.S. pharmaceutical wholesaler AmerisourceBergen Corp.

Last year, Walgreen Co. acquired a 45 percent stake in Alliance Boots, which runs the largest drugstore chain in the United Kingdom, and it has an option to buy the rest of the company in 2015. This year, it bought an ownership stake in AmerisourceBergen and entered a supply agreement with the company.

Analysts have said they like the potential for growth that these deals give Walgreen, which runs 8,200 drugstores.

Overall, Walgreen earned

$695 million, or 72 cents per share, in a fiscal first-quarter performance that matched analysts’ expectations. That was up from $413 million, or 43 cents per share, a year ago, when the company absorbed charges related to the Alliance Boots deal and took a $24 million hit after Superstorm Sandy forced it to close hundreds of stores temporarily.

Walgreen said prescription sales at stores open at least a year jumped 7.2 percent in the quarter, while sales from the front end, or the store areas outside its pharmacy, climbed 2.4 percent. Revenue from established stores is a key indicator of a retailer’s health because it excludes the impact from recently opened or closed stores.

CEO Greg Wasson told analysts in a conference call yesterday that Walgreen has administered 1.1 million more flu shots than it did last year, despite a slow start to the flu season. He said that will help the company’s non-flu vaccine program.